


A Fish Out Of Water

by WinglessCrows



Series: Through the Eyes of a Cook [29]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Adventure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-27 07:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15019973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinglessCrows/pseuds/WinglessCrows
Summary: Sanji gets kidnapped by a Queen and then ends up going on an epic Quest





	A Fish Out Of Water

Sanji wasn't completely sure how he had ended in this situation. He had never once in his life expected to find himself where he was, not because he was invincible, but because he didn't think himself desired... at least not in this way. At the moment, Sanji was on an unfamiliar boat sailing who-knows-where, while he was bound on hands and feet with iron chains, making any escape close to impossible. The odd thing was that he didn't know why he was where he was. He had tried asking, but the answer had been kick to the stomach or a punch to the head, though they were never rough enough to leave any lasting damage. So Sanji could only sit tight until they reached their destination and then await Luffy's arrival. Thinking of Luffy, he must be freaking out at the moment, not because Sanji himself wasn't there, but because they had no one to cook for them. Sure, he would be sad that Sanji wasn't there, but he knew his captain had faith in his strength, so the panic would erupt because none of them could cook for shit. Okay, that wasn't true, Nami and Usopp had some decent skills in cooking, but compared to Sanji... well, let's not go there.

This might be the time for an explanation. Sanji had been kidnapped. Yup, you got that right. Kidnapped. Why? He had no clue. By who? He still didn't know. How? Well, that was easier to answer. Sanji had been in the kitchen, no surprise there, and he had been cooking, what a shocker! So Sanji had simply been minding his own business, when everything had gotten a bit hazy. He had first started to feel a little light headed and then came the weakness. He had stumbled to his knees and then he had try to call out, but his voice was replaced with coughs and then his eyes had blackened, and next thing he knew he was on another ship, in a small cabin where he had been tied to a pole. The cabin was empty save for a few wooden boxes and barrels, which Sanji guessed contained food and drinks. There was much more food here than what the Sunny had in storage, which meant that this ship was either heavily manned or was headed for a far away destination. Sanji hoped that it was the former, if his crew were to find him. It wasn't so much that Sanji needed saving, it was more the fact that if they couldn't find him, he wouldn't really have anywhere to go... Well, they had Nami, so navigation shouldn't be a problem, and judging from the amount of times Luffy bursted into the kitchen, it wouldn't take them long to notice his absence.

So Sanji waited. He wasn't sure what exactly he waited for. Someone telling him where they were going or why they had taken him? Them arriving at the destination? Or maybe just Luffy screaming for someone to give him his cook back? If Sanji had to chose, he'd want the last thing to happen. It didn't. Instead he noticed as the ship stopped moving and people yelling at each other to fold the sails and drop anchor. Not long after they came to Sanji. They removed the restraints from his legs and untied him from the pole, and dragged him along. He squinted when he walked out into the sun which was shining directly at him and it took him awhile to notice his surroundings. They were at a harbour, a normal harbour stationed at the edge of a prosperous town, which looked lively in all ways possible. It had people flowing in and out of the shops on the streets. There were plenty of food in the markets and a wide selection of artisans works in the boutiques. Sanji was dragged along on what he presumed was the main road as it was wide enough for several horse carriages to ride side by side and by the end of the road lay a castle. The scene was almost taken straight out of a fairy tale.

They walked for a good long while and Sanji suspected that they might actually be headed to the castle. He also got a better look at the ones who had kidnapped him and though he had first thought that they were pirates or bounty hunters, he now thought something else. They were all wearing the same blue uniform and they looked more like respectable marines than ferocious outlaws. They weren't marines though so Sanji guessed that they were some sort of royal army. They eventually reached the castle and as Sanji noticed that the guards wore very similar uniforms, he allowed himself the satisfaction of having guessed correctly. But now Sanji was left to wonder why the hell he been brought here. Obviously they had known that he was a strawhat, because they had gotten to their ship. Sanji didn't know whether or not they had recognized him from his bounty poster, because honestly that thing could not look any less like him, but if they had somehow put together that that was him, then why not take him straight to the marines, and if they hadn't recognized his poster, then how did they know they had the right guy? Maybe they didn't though? What if this was just a mix up? But no... They had boarded the Sunny, he was the only blonde guy, they wouldn't make a mistake... right? Sanji ended up accepting the fact that he was both confused and unaware of what was going on and he figured that he would be getting answers at some point.

He was brought into the castle and right before they passed through some very big and fancy doors, someone whispered  _show respect_ in his ears, which tempted Sanji to do the exact opposite, but he decided to look at the situation before he acted. The doors opened to reveal a great hall. It resembled the throne room of Alabasta's Royal Palace, but it had less people than Sanji had always been met with in Alabasta and of course neither Vivi nor her father were there. Sanji was brought before the monarch and ended up standing in front of a great number of stairs, which lead to the throne which she sat upon. The Queen.

She was wearing a bright yellow dress, which glinted like the sun with its many diamonds and gemstones, and the luminous colour perfectly brought our her beautiful sun kissed skin. She had curly brown hair and on top of her head, placed perfectly in the mess of some curls, was her crown. It shone just as much as the gemstones on her dress if not more and the only thing that could match their glow was her eyes. Her eyes beamed with life and grace, and she looked like a kind queen and ruler.

"Are you the one they call Black Leg Sanji?" The Queen asked him and he was silent for a moment, stunned by her beauty.

"I am, my Queen," he answered respectfully, as he had been told, but how could he not act like a gentleman in the eyes of a goddess.

The Queen whispered something to one of her advisors and he whispered something else, and then the attention was back on Sanji.

"Would you do me a favour?" The Queen smiled and as she did her chubby cheeks rounded and damn if she couldn't get anymore perfect.

"Anything for you, my Queen~" Sanji answered as if he was completely entranced by her, which to be fair was kind of the case. But who could blame him? A beautiful woman just asked him for a favour, he couldn't possibly turn her down.

"Could you perhaps... cook me a meal?" She said lovingly and Sanji beamed. He got to show off his skills to her! Oh, what a glorious day!

"I'll cook you the best meal you have ever tasted~" And he did. He poured his heart and soul into this dish and the only other people who would ever have the pleasure of eating food like this was the strawhats. It never once occurred to Sanji that there was something fishy about this situation.

But the dish got served, eaten and enjoyed, and Sanji was once again summoned before the Queen.

"You surpassed my expectations, Black Leg," the Queen said and Sanji was on cloud nine, "The rumours about you don't do you justice, but I feel like your talent is wasted."

"I don't think they are wasted if I cook for people like you, My Dear Queen~"

"I agree," she said and smiled, but it wasn't her sweet smile from earlier, this was different, "I will have you as my personal chef."

And with that sentence, Sanji was woken from his wonderful dream and his face got colder.

"And if I refuse?" Sanji said now looking at the Queen like she was his worst enemy.

"You won't," the Queen simply said, and she sounded just like when Luffy gave an order, confident and absolute.

"I will," Sanji answered harshly, and turned around to walk away. They had taken his restraints off when he had been cooking and they hadn't cared to put them back on as he seemed so willing to do whatever the Queen wanted.

Sanji didn't get very far as he suddenly found himself surrounded by at least thirty guards who pointed their swords at him. Sanji knew that asking nicely wouldn't get him anywhere, so he decided to just force his way out. He charged directly at the one who was standing nearest the door and took him down effortlessly by kicking him and then sending him flying straight into three other guards. He then turned around and kicked the ones who were now charging after him and then ran out of the throne room.

To his great disappointment, the entrance he originally had gone through to get inside the castle was now closed and the gate was far too big and heavy for Sanji to kick down, so he decided that there had to be some other way out and made a left. He soon found himself running up a narrow staircase and after having climbed at least three floors he started to regret his decision as he could hear people following him. There had yet to be a way to escape the staircase other than either going back down or keep climbing, not that the guards were a challenge, but it was always smarter to not underestimate your opponent, so Sanji continued climbing. After an eternity of running up the stairs, Sanji finally got out, but because it was a rule of the universe that strawhats had the worst luck, he now found himself face to face with a maze. At first Sanji found this rather odd, as there wouldn't normally be a maze on the twelfth floor of a castle, but he had seen weirder, so he entered it all the same.

Sanji had once heard that of you ever found yourself in a maze, you should always make a right and eventually you would find yourself at the exit. Sanji didn't know if he could believe this or not, but since he had nothing else to go on, he just decided to always go right. Sanji also noticed that the noise of the guards had disappeared as soon as he had entered the maze, which was probably a bad sign, but what could he do? He had already entered the maze so it didn't really matter.

After having walked for about fifteen minutes, Sanji was faced with his first obstacle. A cat. This wasn't a just normal cat though, sure it had black fur, green eyes, a tail and four paws, but it was also he size of a house. The cat almost didn't fit in the little space it had to sit in and it certainly wouldn't be able to stand up and walk. Sanji first wondered if he should turn back, but then the cat started talking.

"The first two letters of the password refer to a man. The first three letters refer to a woman. The first four letters refer to a great man. The whole password refer to a great woman. Say the password and you can continue."

"What?" Sanji shouted confused and the cat repeated the riddle, which didn't really help Sanji much. He was beginning to feel more and more like the prince of a fairy tale... except that he was running away from the beautiful Queen and her guards to be with the criminal pirates. But other than that tiny detail, there was a castle with a beautiful woman and a bunch of trials he had to go through to get what he wanted.

Sanji thought about the riddle for quite some time, but eventually he got the answer right and the cat allowed him to pass by shrinking into a normal sized cat which  _definitely_  wasn't weird. He then continued on for some time, still only making rights wherever he could and eventually he made it to the next obstacle, or trial as it was.

This time there was a pitfall, a very low ceiling, a rope, a bow and a single arrow. The motive was simple, shoot the rope to the other side and climb over the pitfall. Sanji couldn't 'cheat' and jump over because of the low ceiling and the bottom of the pitfall was filled with spikes, so Sanji had no choice but to shoot the arrow. He would have much rather preferred throwing or even kicking the arrow, as he wasn't much of a marksman, but there was no room for a big swing, so he had to use the bow and arrow. Sanji got down on his back and aimed as well as he could to the other side of the room. There was a very specific area that he had to hit if the arrow was to actually stay in the wall and Sanji was suddenly thankful for all the hours of obligatory archery he had done as a kid. He hadn't really held a bow in many years, but he shot and the arrow was stuck to the wall. Sanji attached the robe to his side and climbed over the pitfall.

Finally Sanji arrived at a door and in front of the door was a table with a balanced scale, eight pills and a note. Sanji expected this to be the last trial, if it were to follow the fairy tale theme and braced himself as he read the note:  _Behind this door lays a monster. The only way to subdue it is with a sleeping pill. In front of you there are eight pills. One makes you fall into a heavy sleep, the other seven will give you inhuman power. You have two chances._  This was puzzling. Sanji had to somehow figure out which of these pills was the sleeping drug and if he chose the wrong pill, he would basically be a dead man. Sanji read the note many times before he finally understood how to solve this riddle. He devided the pills in three groups and put two groups of three pills on either side of the scale. When the right one proved to be slightly heavier, he threw away the pills unweighed and the pills on the left. He then choose two of the three pills had left and compared their weigths. Right after it had been determined that the pills were equally heavy the weight broke, but Sanji took the pill that hadn't been weighed and walked through the door.

In the room he was met with the strangest looking creature he had ever seen. The creature was literally just a super sized version of an animal which seemed to be the combination between a cat, an armadillo and a deer. Sanji wasn't even surprised when it started spitting fire, he just dodged and threw the pill into its mouth. It immediately fell asleep. Behind the weird creature was another staircase, which this time lead downwards and feeling like the end of the quest was nearing he went down.

Sanji arrived at Nami's heaven. A great treasure room. There was gold, gemstones and precious metal everywhere. Even the pillars and walls were coated with gold and Sanji was sure Nami would be happen if the result of his kidnapping was them getting rich. Sanji was a pirate after all so he couldn't let an opportunity like this pass him by. He took off his jacket and used it as a bag to carry all the most valuable things in. Sanji had learned that gemstones, and diamonds in particular, were worth more than gold, so he gathered most of those. He also took any jewellery which he thought the girls might like, and in his adventure through the treasure he let his guard down. Sanji should have known that the place would have more than one guardian, especially more than one guardian who could be taken down if one just followed the instructions. So Sanji soon found himself with an arrow going through his leg, and for a person who used kicks as their attack, this wasn't a good thing. Sanji hid behind a pillar to avoid any more arrows and tried to find his attacker, but to no luck. From the structure of the room he could guess that the archer was hidden somewhere through the gate opposite from where Sanji had entered.

Sanji wasn't sure how to take him out as he couldn't charge at him without getting hit again, so he decided to try to throw (kick) things at the guard in the hopes of taking him out. He kicked various treasures in his attackers direction, and just when he thought he landed a hit another arrow came flying towards him and he barely dodged it. Sanji was in some deep shit and he was about to take a leap of faith towards the guardian when something exploded and he came flying towards Sanji. Unfortunately the explosion hadn't knocked him out, it had just brought him closer to Sanji, but before either of them could do anything, the guard was hit by lightning and Sanji only knew one person who could do that.

"Nami-swan~" Sanji exclaimed and ran to her, but she punched him in the face when he got too close and started scolding him for getting kidnapped. Nami hadn't been alone and Sanji figured that the explosion had been Usopp's doing as he popped out from behind Nami and tried to calm her down. Chopper also appeared soon after and gave Sanji some first aid treatment to his wounded leg and Sanji couldn't help but find the situation odd and conclusive as him being saved by the heroine, the archer and the doctor seemed to finish his little fairy tale perfectly.


End file.
